- Suzanne Konzelmann takes a crack at the political economy of austerity in the Cambridge Journal of Economics. I have said for a while now that public choice theory is likely to be judged negatively in the future for its inability or unwillingness to rise to the occasion of explaining one of the most important facets of public life today - austerity. Often, perhaps due to libertarian priors, self-identified public choice theorists deny there is even anything there to study. Lots of other people are on the job of course. One nice thing about public choice theory is that it's a cohesive set of tools.